..you waffle woman, what's your point!

I work with projects that compete each year for funding. I write reports, and I collect data to meet compliance requirements. This limits the capacity of project to innovate by forcing it to meet known compliance levels, and never progress beyond.

Citizens as patrons..?

Imagine if government funding, or at least elements of it could be subject to micro-patronage. Where not just government departments but taxpayers could apportion an element of their taxes to projects which they felt would further the societies they lived in....

It sounds crazy, but could it work. We talk of open data. Imagine how the reports and the data would look if projects were openly competing for patrons. Sure, there's probably a need in the transition stages to phase in the concept...

Imagine the way society, innovation and funding could reconnect and create a second renaissance, a true chance to fund and connect some of the micro-ideas which deserve development, and perhaps take us beyond compliance, and into a rich new social network.